After snapping a shot, I paused to read the contiguous quote by coach Jim Valvano:

“To me, there are three things we all should do every day. We should do this every day of our lives. Number one is laugh. You should laugh every day. Number two is think. You should spend some time in thought. And number three is, you should have your emotions moved to tears, could be happiness or joy. But think about it. If you laugh, you think, and you cry, that’s a full day. That’s a heck of a day. You do that seven days a week, you’re going to have something special.”

Here’s what I Think ~> when I Laugh until I Cry, that’s a heck of a day.

Since my sister’s daughters were both in England over Christmas, my sister and her husband headed to Mississippi to spend Christmas with his family.

Instead of spending Christmas “Home Alone” . . . BFF and I packed our bags and headed to the “other coast” of Florida for a few days.

Staying in a high-rise on the beach didn’t feel like a “traditional Christmas,” but we did enjoy a few “Ho-Ho-Ho” moments . . . like riding the hotel elevator on Christmas Eve with a white-bearded guy carrying a Santa costume (who was probably headed to Cocoa Beach for the Surfing Santas event, but who wished to remain incognito):

“Hey, you look like Santa!”

“Shhhh . . .”

Note to readers: NEVER argue with Santa on Christmas Eve!

The day before, after a happy (and delicious) Happy Hour at the Chart House, I snapped a shot of Santa’s eight tiny (champagne cork) reindeer . . . who did NOT insist on remaining incognito.

On Christmas Eve, our dinner plans evaporated when we arrived at Coasters for dinner in the Biergarten and found it had closed 2 hours too soon to suit us.

On Christmas Day, before checking out of the hotel, we enjoyed coffee on the balcony while checking out the waves.

On our way home, via Orlando, we stopped at Disney Springs for lunch ~ take out from Bongos Cuban Cafe to enjoy lakeside.

Black Beans and Rice . . . that’s nice!

Look! Up in the sky . . . it’s a bird. It’s a plane. It’s a balloon full of hot air!

After lunch, we wandered the shops . . .

Admiring a-moose-ing decorations . . .

We also toured the Christmas Tree Trail, full of all things Disney . . .

Hats off to my favorite Alice-in-Wonderland themed tree . . .

A few days after Christmas, we headed back to Orlando for a belated Christmas celebration with my sister’s family.

Instead of scones on arrival, we ate granola bars en route. Instead of a traditional Christmas dinner (with Yorkshire pudding), we had pizza. Instead of a garlanded Christmas tree guarding piles of presents, we piled our beribboned packages on an end table in front of the fire.

It’s beginning to feel a lot like Christmas . . .

So, even though our Christmas traditions got tossed asunder this year to accommodate life’s changes . . . we found, just like the Grinch, that “somehow it came, it came just the same.”

Plus, we loved Plan B so much that ordering Chinese take-out on Christmas Eve might become our NEW Christmas Eve tradition!

Aah . . . that’s better!

What are your favorite Christmas traditions? Did you start any NEW ones this year?

May the best ye hae ivver seen be the warst ye’ll ivver see.
May the moose ne’er lea’ yer girnal wi a tear-drap in its ee.
May ye aye keep hail an hertie till ye’r auld eneuch tae dee.
May ye aye juist be sae happie as A wuss ye aye tae be.

The above, in translation, reads:

May the best you have ever seen be the worst you will ever see.
May the mouse never leave your grain store with a tear drop in its eye.
May you always stay hale and hearty until you are old enough to die.
May you still be as happy as I always wish you to be.

In the fifth grade, in the winter when it was too cold to go outside during gym, we did tumbling and rope climbing.

Lacking proficiency in both, I often “forgot” my gym clothes so I would not have to participate.

When I got my report card, with an “Unsatisfactory” in gym, my teacher, Mr. Miller, encouraged me to try harder. Since I had a crush on him (until he broke my heart by moving to some far off island in the American Samoas), I decided to try harder.

I began practicing at home in the basement using cushions off the love seats as tumbling mats.

After mastering the forward roll, I progressed to forward diving somersaults over 4-5 people lying side by side on the tumbling mats!

When life is lobbing lemons your way and you don’t have the time to stop what you’re doing to make lemonade . . . LAUGH! Finding something to smile or laugh about alleviates anxiety.

We just watched a segment on Bay News 9 which featured a psychologist who took her own advice during the approach, arrival, and retreat of Hurricane Irma.

“We have no control over the path of a hurricane as just seen with Irma who dodged east, then west, then east, then west. We do have control over our attitude.”

She also urged folks who are wrestling with the emotional strain of the past few days to seek out and talk to friends, relatives, or therapists to regain perspective.

During the storm, I made an effort to maintain my sense of humor because going through life without a sense humor is like driving over potholes and boulders without shock absorbers.

It’s jolting!

Instead of being jolted around, joke around.

Crack silly jokes. Even if the humor is childish. Or not entirely PC.

A few examples . . .

BS was reading a book about Spencer Tracy’s love interests and love affairs with stars and starlets. BS said he didn’t divorce his wife to marry Katharine Hepburn “because he was a good Catholic.” I burst out loud laughing at her sum up of his character and offered a counter-point to her point:

Spencer Tracy was NOT a good Catholic. Had he been a good Catholic, he wouldn’t have engaged in affairs. Like other hypocrites, he just wanted to be perceived by others as being a good Catholic.

During the height of the storm, one of the reporters was talking about how they retire storm names. I noted:

With global warming increasing, we may run out of all the easy names (e.g., Harvey, Irma, Jose).

If we do, we’ll have to become increasingly creative with storm names (e.g., Yawanda, Chavonda, Chewbacca, etc.)